Toyota car is a virtual garden for the urban jungle

29th November 2011

Most people know that cars and lorries are responsible for exhaust gases, particulates, noise pollution and road danger, but how many of us consider the damage to the visual environment caused by the endless rows of parked vehicles that line our streets?

The latest concept design from Toyota is the car giant’s own take on the problem.

At the Tokyo Auto Show early next year, Toyota will unveil its Fun-Vii concept, a car with bodywork embedded with a display that allows drivers to change the exterior to any image they choose. Cue parked cars that look like flowerbeds, a neatly manicured hedge or even a brick wall.

Chameleon cars

A spokesperson for green car breakdown provider, the ETA said: “For those of us who live in urban areas, it is so unusual for us to see our streets free of parked cars that we become immune to the visual clutter they create – chameleon-like cars are not an answer but they could make for a more harmonious-looking environment.”

The idea of designing cars so that they blend into their environment is not a new one. American artist, Justin Shull
last year built an electric vehicle that is virtually indistinguishable from a well-trimmed privet hedge. The Terrestrial Shrub Rover is inconspicuous so could, in theory, be parked with impunity on any area of grass.